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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Ethiopian Man stabs wife to death and then hangs himself

Man stabs wife to death and then hangs himself, while two of
the couple's three children are locked in a room of their Rishon Letzion
apartment.

A man stabbed his wife to death late Monday night and hanged
himself while two of the couple's three children were locked in a room in their
Rishon Letzion apartment.

The couple, Lawaka Amara, 37, and his wife, Yeshi Amara, 32,
had immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia five years ago. They were found dead
after a neighbor called the police Tuesday morning to report two children
crying for help in her building in the largely Ethiopian neighborhood of Ramat
Eliyahu.

According to the initial investigation, the couple began
arguing during the night. The two older children, ages 10 and 12, were locked
in a room while the youngest child, 5, was apparently taken to a relative's
home earlier that evening.

Some time before dawn, Lawaka Amara stabbed his wife to
death with a kitchen knife and then hanged himself. Both husband and wife
worked in a large supermarket in the Rishon area.

Mira Shaham, head of the Rishon Letzion welfare office, said
the children would probably stay with Lawaka Amara's parents for the coming days,
"but we're still looking into the best solution for them in their terrible
situation."

The welfare authorities said the family had received the
same financial assistance as all Ethiopian immigrants during their first two
years in the country, and that there had been no reports of violence. The
Amaras are the third family in Rishon Letzion in which the husband murdered the
wife, Shaham said.

"We are very aware of the warning signs," Shaham
said. "When women report to us or the moment we see something, we
immediately begin a process with the woman so she can take care of herself. And
we sometimes also begin treating the men. One of the problems is that people
keep things bottled up inside."

Shaham, who has been at her post for 15 years, says the
welfare office has a team of 11 people who speak Amharic to maintain lines of
communication with families. "The right thing to do is to call on the
community and its leaders to encourage people to turn to the welfare
authorities, who can help them," she said.

Hundreds of people from the Ethiopian community gathered
yesterday outside the apartment building where the Amara family lived. An uncle
said the children had tried to reach him over the Internet while they were
locked in the room, but failed.

A female relative said, referring to Yeshi Amara, that
"she never said anything to us about violence, she never said she was
afraid of him. There were difficulties, as there are with all new immigrants
from Ethiopia. But this is simply a shock."

Natan Getahon, who works with the Rishon Letzion welfare
services as a mediator for the Ethiopian community, said a big problem was that
community members in trouble don't seek the help of a traditional community
leader the way they used to. "The next incident is only a matter of
time," he said.

The Knesset Immigrant Absorption Committee announced that it
would hold an emergency session next week to discuss the issue. "Again and
again we hear shocking stories about the destruction of families and the loss
of life because of violence and murder .... We mustn't accept this terrible
situation," MK Shlomo Molla (Kadima ) said.

Molla, an Ethiopian-Israeli, said ministries did not
understand that Ethiopian immigrants needed special assistance not only while
they live in absorption centers for the initial two years or so after they make
aliyah, but after they move to their permanent homes as well.

Molla said no such help was forthcoming, which means
families were living "with long-term idleness, which leads to a lack of
involvement in society, degeneration and frustration. This often leads to cases
of family violence."

Yeshi Amara is the third Ethiopian woman to be murdered by
her husband in the past two months. Two weeks ago a man apparently beat his
wife to death with a rock in their home in Safed. The couple's 13-year-old son
was in their apartment during the attack.

About a month ago, a man murdered his ex-wife in Kiryat Arba
in the West Bank and then committed suicide. In that case, the authorities were
aware that the husband had used violence against his wife.

The police declined a request from Haaretz for statistics on
such murders in the Ethiopian community. "The police do not usually
catalogue murders according to ethnic community, but according to the
offense," police spokesman Ami Ben-David said.

However, according to the nonprofit group Sela, which
provides assistance to new immigrants who have experienced tragedies, there
have been seven cases of husbands murdering their wives among
Ethiopian-Israelis in the last seven years, and 28 such murders over the past
decade. There have been 70 documented cases of verbal abuse and physical
violence over the past decade. In some cases the women have been severely
injured.

"In Ethiopia there was violence, but not bloodshed. The
men called it 'educating the woman' and the community accepted it as long as it
did not end in murder," said Micha Feldman, head of the Ethiopian unit at
Sela for the past 20 years.

Feldman said that in Ethiopia the village elders and the
extended family acted as mediators, but that "in Israel this does not
exist. The elders don't have status and the men's status has also gone down,
while women have grown stronger."

The problem families are often relatively new in the
country, and the murders usually occur after they leave the absorption center
for their permanent homes, Feldman said. She said that when the authorities
intervene and serve the husband with a restraining order "he has nowhere
to go. He has to go back to his parents, 'humiliated like a little boy,' as
they put it, and in the end they go back and murder her."

Feldman said a framework should be established for such men
that allows them to keep their dignity. Efrat Yardai, spokeswoman for the
Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, agrees and says there are not enough
Amharic speakers in government agencies to communicate with women who "get
up the courage to approach the authorities .... "The murders won't stop
until this essential help is provided."

David Baharat, director of Mercaz Higui, a group that
assists Ethiopian schoolchildren, says some rabbinic courts use traditional
mediators to help divorcing Ethiopian couples, but the government does not
recognize them formally.

"They are even willing to volunteer," he said.
Baharat says welfare and other officials need more training to get to know the
Ethiopian culture "to give them the tools to prevent the crises that lead
to murder and suicide."http://www.haaretz.com